


Snapshots - An Alphabet of Prompts

by orphan_account



Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gillovny, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6515776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short Gillovny stories based around a series of alphabet prompts on tumblr. Non-linear and standalone, grouped here for convenience!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. W - Would it ruin everything if I said I wanted to stay?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Split timings, 2013/2016 and moments where everything changed
> 
> “Would it ruin everything if I said I wanted to stay?”. 
> 
>  

  _ **April 11th 2016. 7:48 AM** _

I stand and stare at the door until my eyes start to blur the grain of the wood into a sea of swirling earth tones, dark running into light and back again like the two of us always seem to. I don’t know why I hesitate. I have a key. I’ve had it for two years and used it as often as my schedule allows but somehow today is different. Everything has been different lately and so instead of letting myself in I stand there and I remember the first time I was here. October 2013. The night when everything started all over again.

* * *

_**October 12th, 2013. 10:06pm.** _

“And then to finish the grand tour we have the library”. David gestures dramatically at his bookshelf as we step back into his living room. It’s the fourth time we’ve rentered this central space and every time he’s pointed at a different piece of furniture, jokingly dubbing it “the morning room”, “the yoga studio” and “anteroom”. He’s so different in this place to the last time I saw him at home. Here he is light and laughing, the simple decor giving him space to be himself. His L.A house had always seemed a bad fit; layers of pretention and unused, unhappy rooms that he tried to graciously inhabit as a loving father and dutiful husband in the years where I hardly recognised him as the man I first met.

But that time is over and today has felt like those giddy early days when we were dancing around each other, revelling in our chemistry, youth and the opportunity of a lifetime. I hadn’t been expecting that. I hadn’t even expected him to agree to this weekend, conventions and fan stuff are not David’s scene and though I’d alerted his team to all the ones I’d been to, just in case, I had been unsurprised that his schedule didn’t allow him to join me. Until now. 

Something is different and it has been since we arrived at the hotel this morning for our reddit Q&A, me straight off the plane and him not long out of bed. He was instantly at my side, in my space with his hands and his humour breaking off pieces of the awkwardness of years passed with little to no communication and replacing it with the old closeness. The old chemistry.

I’d expected him to recoil when I patted the bed next to me for the much requested proof photograph. To jokily defuse the situation when the journalist raised one eyebrow as he curled into my side and grinned for the picture. But he hadn’t.

I’d expected him to keep a safe space between us at the Paley Centre, to keep his hands in his lap and his eyes on the neutral territory of the audience. But he hadn’t. And now as we settle on his sofa in companionable silence I can feel every place his fingers marked during that panel, lit like a string of fairy-lights across my body, powered by the intensity of our locked gaze. 

The humour evaporates fast now that the small talk is out of the way, leaving us exposed in the truth of the moment. For the first time in years we are alone together without agents or fans to bear witness and without the weight of responsibility to other loves to consider. I know that technically David is still married but in a stolen moment earlier he showed me a picture of his kids out with Tea and her new boyfriend, happy and smiling, his way of telling me that this time it is really over. And suddenly it’s all too much. Us alone together in this new, unspoiled space is a dangerous combination for my repeatedly reconstructed heart. Twenty years ago I fell in love with the man sitting across from me and we spent a decade tearing each other apart. We’ve grown up now and time has worn the sharpest edges from our cruellest moments but in the throbbing tension stretched between us I can feel how easy it would be to undo all of that progress. To fall back into him and to lose myself.

By the look in his eyes when I lever myself to my feet, setting my untouched drink down a little to firmly and turning my back to him I know that he is weighing the same risks.

“Today has been fun.” I offer lamely. 

He nods. “More of the same tomorrow?” and I can’t help but smirk at his naivete.

“Oh no. Tomorrow is going to be much crazier. The fans tonight were quite sane! Remember San Diego?” There’s a giggle in my voice as he winces.

“I try not to. Why’d I let you talk me into this again?” I shrug. I still haven’t quite worked it out actually, San Diego was really for the writers and the accompanying article. But this? I’m caught up in my thoughts and so I don’t notice him step back into my space.

“I missed you Gillian” and his hands are on my shoulders, his eyes a sincere grey green and fixed on mine. I stay perfectly skill, wavering between fight and flight, between melting into him and running away. He leans in and places a sweet, soft kiss on my temple, laying his cards on the table without pushing me. And then he stays there, rough chin to my cheekbone, waiting for me to respond.

“I should go.” I whisper into him, though neither my body or my tone lends conviction to my words. The seconds stretch to hours, to years as I run through every one of the thousand reasons I should turn and leave. So many good reasons but every one is overridden by the power of his presence. After an eternity I find the question that will decide how this next chapter begins, that last chance for a clean getaway.

“Would it ruin everything if I said I wanted to stay?”.

And his answer is his mouth on mine, kisses that are pure oxygen cutting through the fog of all our half truths and missed opportunities. HIs hands under my skirt are possessive, retracing long-remembered curves as I mark out my territory on the tight line of his collarbone. His shirt falls in the library, my dress in the cinema and by the time we reach the bedroom door there is not even air between his body and mine. This is what we are to one another, fire and gasoline. And this time there is nothing to stop us from burning hot and clean until nothing is left.

I’ve never forgotten the taste of him but taking him in my mouth again is somehow new, his eyes locked on my lips have something in them beyond the animal need of the moment. I see that same light again as he enters me, as I moan at the incomparable fullness that is his cock buried deep inside me. It’s the clarity in our gaze as his fingers undo me, bringing us crashing down together on a wave of pleasure that is chemistry and history and magic all in one. And I as we slip off to sleep hours later, tangled in each other it’s the feeling deep in my chest that this is finally our time.

* * *

_**April 11th 2016. 7:50 AM** _

Just remembering that night stirs the familiar heat in my belly and between my legs, I feel my pulse increase at the memories of all the ways that we have christened his apartment. But what is holding me back is not that easy to define need, it’s the ache in my chest that stays with me now every time we’re apart. The ache I have carried with me since last summer in Vancouver where we put our still unlabelled commitment to the test over three months of filming and came out unscathed. The ache that bites deeply when I remember David telling me that he loved me as we parted on the last day and I swallowed my real response because I was scared to admit how hard I had fallen for him all over again.

The ache that might be banished for good once all my baggage and I step through that door and his apartment becomes our apartment, when I finally admit to him and myself that a life together is an actual possibility for us.

All I need to do is open the door. And I don’t know why I can’t. 

Until it swings inwards on it’s own and he’s standing there waiting for me; his smile banishing the questions and the threshold and welcoming me wordlessly into his arms and his life. And as he half carries me into our home, kissing my face and my neck, luggage abandoned in the hallway I finally tell him the three words he has waited 23 years to hear.


	2. Z - Zen? You drop that on me and then ask me to be zen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 1994 and with life-altering news Gillian's first call is not to who she thought it would be.

**February 20th, 1994**

‘Zen? You drop that on me and then ask me to be zen?! Are you insane’ David’s voice is harsh and loud and is the closest anything has come to cutting through the numbing cloud that’s clung tight to my thoughts since the strip turned pink. I shrug, I have said my prepared lines and now I can’t think of what to say next. I’d been hoping for a better test reaction but not expecting one. This could ruin everything.

'Gillian. What were you thinking? We’re less than a year into a new show, you’ve just won everyone over and now you’re fucking pregnant!? Was it deliberate? Because last time you came over like this you were crying and telling me the whole marriage was a massive mistake and that it was over. You know that a baby will make things harder and not easer on you and Clyde right? What does he have to say about this because the last time I saw him the guy looked fucking miserable as sin".

'He doesn’t know.’ My answer slips out softly for a confession of such enormous weight. 'You’re the only person who knows.’

And with the truth in the open his face softens, anger melting to frustration as he stops the angry pacing around the trailer and crumples down next to me on the couch. The silent is as pregnant as the four tests on my bathroom floor say that I am and just when I think that this whole thing has been a colossal mistake David’s hand breaches the divide between us and finds mine. I take his olive branch and shuffle into his side, into my old spot against him, a spot that I abandoned for what I thought was stable, adult choice and is looking more and more like the latest in my string of reckless, life-altering decisions.

I can’t explain what mad logic has led me to David’s trailer with my news. Somewhere across town my new husband is probably waiting up for me to come home and try and smooth over our latest disagreement about how we combine our radically different lives but this was the only place I could think to come when the fog descended. Maybe it’s because he’s the only person who understands the complete upheaval that the X-Files has wreaked on our lives. Maybe it’s because he’s the only person in this town who is completely, brutally honest with me. Maybe it’s because I remember the look on his face when I told him Clyde and I had eloped and I knew that behind the surprise, hurt and disappointment was someone who really cared about me as a person rather than me as an asset to a production or a prize.

'What am I going to do David?' 

As I verbalise for the first time the complete desperation of my situation the dam breaks and tears start to run down my face, flooding over the carefully constructed barriers of self-control I have imposed and soaking into my co-star's sweater. Rough sobs start to wrack my body and I imagine them travelling down to my belly, making waves that swirl and tug at the tiny person growing inside me. The idea of hurting it only makes me sob harder as I realise that one of my options, the neatest, is something I don’t think I have the heart to do. David is my only anchor in the storm of my emotions and he carries me as I let go of my loneliness, my fear of failing and the strain of pretending that I’m coping with the situation I have put myself in. For a moment I’m back in the woods where we filmed the pilot, in the moment where we howled at the moon and let go of the expectations of the production and just shouted our defiance at the moon.

But this time there wont be an easy end with drinks and dry clothes and flirtation to make us forget the day. This time there is so much more at stake. So many lives that will be affected by what is happening and in a few minutes I will have to face up to that fact.

For now though I am where I need to be. Perhaps it’s not the right place or the right man but somehow, in the hush before the chaos I have found some sort of peace. And when David tells me that it’s going to be okay I almost believe him.


	3. O - Open your eyes on the count of 3?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David has a surprise planned and Gillian is reluctant to play along.

'Okay.... Open your eyes on the count of three.'

David's voice is giddy and despite being freshly woken up and very confused I can't help but smile at his happiness. Surprises usually aren't my favourite thing, in fact I mostly hate them, you can't plan for a surprise or make sure you're protected from it if it goes bad but I steel myself to be happy for this one, to share in his pleasure. It's only 9am and I plan to make the most of our last day together in New York.

When he reaches one I open my eyes and see.... I'm not actually sure what I'm seeing but it's clear that my attempt to hold a smile has failed under the strain of my confusion. I have never been able to act around him when it really mattered and he looks slightly concerned, nervous even at my lack of reaction.

'David?' I venture, 'Why did you make me keep my eyes shut and then empty your wallet out in my lap?'

His disappointment slips a little as he begins to understand that something has not quite connected between his gesture and my response. He gestures at the scattered cards and cash again, smile beginning to creep back onto his face.

'Look at it Gillian.' He gestures at the mess on the unmade sheets before sliding his driving license closer to me. I still don't get it but he's not giving me any more hints, just watching me closely as if any minute I'll suddenly figure out the mad plan he's dreamed up and do a happy dance. Sighing and rolling my eyes at my middle-aged lover pulling a face I last saw on my nine year old, I grab my reading glasses from the bedside table and slide them up my nose.

"Did you.... Change the picture on your driver's license?' I offer. It does look recent but I wasn't well acquainted with the old one and I'm still not sure how this is a surprise that would require any sort of build up. Until I notice the colour of the card. It's pink instead of white, and as I bring it close to my face I realise that it bears the seal of the European Union. And a UK address. Mine.

'David? Why do you have a UK driving license?' The words come out slowly and slightly off balance, my brain struggling to make sense of what logical reason he could possibly have for changing his license to another country's. His eyes are bright as I begin to unravel his surprise.

'I had to renew it and it seemed the smart thing to do. Also it matches my new Oyster card.' He reaches across and pulls the familiar blue plastic card pass out of the mess. 'Piper tells me that this will not get me any seafood but will allow me on buses?'

I nod dumbly, still not fully comprehending the scale of his gesture.

So he continues.

'She also got me a tube map, an account for the cab company you use and a loyalty card for what she claims is the best sushi place in Zone One. Whatever that means.

I also have some "tenners" and this ridiculously large, purple excuse for money is a twenty. The fifty "p" is my favourite because it is without a doubt the stupidest shaped coin I have ever seen."

He's climbed on the bed next to me and is chattering and rummaging through the things he's laid before me. Little pieces of a life he doesn't live, the life I will go back to tomorrow. I want to ask him what it all means but my heart is in my throat and my question has to choke it's way past the fear that I'm reading this all wrong.

We've talked about him visiting me in London over the summer and all of this looks like the perfect, slightly kooky, collection of things David would pack for a holiday. Except the driving license. I can't work out the driving license and so I clutch at his arm, cutting off his cheerful speech and drag his eyes to mine.

His face is open and relaxed and I can feel mine stretched tight with the tears I am holding back, with the hope I'm not allowing myself to grasp. And I ask him again.

"Why do you have a UK driving license". And now his smile is sweet and his hands are on my cheeks, making me hold his gaze, making sure that I understand.

"My license needed renewing and I found out that if I plan to spend more than 180 days a year in the UK they recommend exchanging my US license anyway. So I applied and it arrived yesterday. Your government are very efficient."

"And when exactly did you start spending 180 days or more a year in the UK?" It's all I can manage as I try desperately to hold it together until I am sure of what he's saying.

"When I realised it was the only way I would get to keep living the life I love with the woman I love," is his simple answer as he kisses away the first tear that escapes down my cheek. "Gillian this summer has been the best of my life. Having you here, waking up every morning to your mad hair and your madder laugh. I can't give it up. I won't. So I've spoken to Tea and my kids and worked out a way to spend almost as much time as I do now with them between here and London. I've told my agent not to pursue any new U.S. projects for the next year. And I've bought a one way ticket on your flight. If it's okay with you, I'm moving to London."

I start to cry in earnest as the barriers I've placed around my expectations of what David and I could be begin to tumble down. I've told myself over and over that geography was our enemy, that he'd never leave the U.S. And there was no way I could move my boys so we were trapped together in this bittersweet limbo. Until we weren't. Until the man I have loved for almost half my life moved heaven and earth, realigned our stars and put them in his wallet for me to find.

And as he traces the tidelines of my tears with his thumb, catching every one before it can fall dampen our moment I find a way to tell him how much this means to me.

"I think that maybe now I like surprises" and this time there's no trace of pretence in my smile.

 


	4. C - Can I borrow your hand for a second?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Jimmy Kimmel and some new boundaries need to be set to preserve the secret. Except it doesn't exactly work.

**_January 13th 2016 - 8am_ **

The sun has barely made any headway over the building opposite as I drag my weary bones and stretched out limbs from the bedroom towards the sound of a coffee machine in the kitchen. Vaguely I reach up and pat my tangled hair, sighing as I realise that it’s going to take some quality time with a brush to undo the effects of last night’s activities. The exploratory action makes the shirt I have thrown on gape open, exposing my nakedness and the web of small pink marks which trail across my London-pale skin; there are finger marks on my hips, teeth on the dip between stomach and pelvis and the rosettes of his lips all across my breasts. A perfect record of our encounter, his need for privacy apparently doesn’t extend to not marking me as his territory.

I sigh, relieved that I don’t have to film anything in less than a full set of clothes in the next few days and as I turn the corner I admire him as he fusses with mugs, broad shoulders imposing a shadow even in the soft light.

‘You’ve left me a fucking mess David!’ I complain, sleep cracking the edges of my accusation as he turns to see me flash his handiwork before starting work on the buttons of the shirt, covering the evidence.

His eyes flash dark and a smile quirks his mouth. He’s proud of himself and I’m a little surprised that he doesn’t cross and stop me from dressing, making some quip about adding to his private gallery. But it’s probably for the best. We have more press and not much time and as tempting as he is I’m dying for a cup of coffee.

He adds milk to mine and I watch as his head shakes almost imperceptibly at my dairy indulgence. It’s a habit born of years of bickering over healthy eating, just one of the tiny details in the tapestry of our relationship that makes whatever it is we’re doing so meaningful and so potentially dangerous. I don’t think anyone in the world, not even David himself, could tell you that he shakes his head every time he adds full fat milk to a cup of coffee.

I open my mouth to tell him. I want to share one of the moments where the world shrinks to just us and we acknowledge our unique pocket of existence, the place where nobody else has ever or could ever intrude. But David clearly has something else on his mind as he hands me my mug and pulls out a stool for me at the breakfast bar, settling a few feet away and pulling his phone across the granite surface.

‘G, we have a problem.’ his voice is flat and serious and his eyes give nothing away.

My heart slows to a sickening thud and I suddenly wish I was wearing more clothes. These conversations never go my way.

‘What is it’. All lightness has drained from the morning and I brace for the worst. He pulls his glasses down to his nose and taps a few times on his phone before settling back and starting to read.

> _‘Dear David,  
>  _
> 
> _I hope you have had a good night’s sleep though somehow I doubt you have. As the person in charge of keeping unwanted headlines away from you I thought you might be interested to know that I also haven’t slept well due to the barrage of press interest in your little display with Gillian on Kimmel last night._
> 
> _If you wish for my denials and deflection to continue to be even remotely convincing on your behalf then may I politely suggest that the two of you do not agree to any more impromptu “joke sex” and that you try and remember that normal co-stars don’t pet each other on talk shows._
> 
> _Some days I could swear that you’re trying to kill me David._
> 
> _Get it together,_
> 
> _Melanie._
> 
> _P.S. Tell Gillian this applies to her too and her people are gonna bust her ass._

As he finishes he raises his eyes to meet mine and his serious façade slips as he bites his bottom lip and pulls his best naughty schoolboy face. 

‘I think we broke Melanie, Gill. She sent this at 4:27 AM!’ and I can hear the laughter in his voice.

‘You’re such as ass!’ is my instinctive response. His whole set up of a serious chat really had me going and as funny as I’m sure the situation is I can also see Melanie’s point. The missed calls on my phone from my management now make a lot more sense than they did when I blearily acknowledged them ten minutes ago. ‘You better give that woman a raise or at least some flowers!’

He nods a little sheepishly at that. Now that he’s done with his little reveal it seems that there may actually be a more serious conversation coming.

‘I will. And partly because she wasn’t wrong.’ He comes around to my side of the counter and taps a link in the email which I can now see is littered with a lot more cursing and exclamation points than David’s reading had indicated. Poor woman. A video of our interview starts playing and within moments I can see why the press would be interested. In my memory we were just being friendly and goofing about as we always have but from now, watching from the outside, it looks like we’re only a step down from heavy petting. My hand is on his thigh, his is on my ass and don’t even get me started on the gazing.

As the video goes on my brain is shouting that there is no way we’re getting away with this with a “friend” story, it’s almost worse than the Cutting Room. Unfortunately for my brain, my body is remembering each touch quite clearly and its’ hormones are busy overriding all my very reasonable concerns, blood pooling in my nipples and moisture between my legs.

The video finishes and I look up at David, inches from me but seemingly unaware of the effect the video has had on me. And I decide to have a little fun of my own in revenge for his early morning fake-out.

‘That is kind of a problem.’ I tell him, keeping my voice steady and my eyes clear and innocent. ‘That all went much too far.’

He nods in agreement. 

‘We need to be more careful. I just don’t think I realised how badly being close to you affects me. And I don’t know how I can avoid it it it happens without either of us noticing. Maybe we should go back to doing separate interviews?’. His suggestion is probably a good one though his tone tells me it’s not what he really wants and so I slip off my stool and push him across to the big mirror in the living room, proceeding with my little plan.

‘That would only look more suspicious’ I counter. ‘We just need to rehearse a little, to see what we can and can’t get away with. Can I borrow your hand for a second?’ And he looks at me confused but extends the requested hand.

‘Now watch in the mirror’ I demand, taking in the sight of myself, tiny and barefoot in just his shirt and him, baffled and sleep-scruffy but willing to do as I ask. My heart gives a hard beat and I push it down and hold his arm out in front of us by the wrist. With my other hand I reach over and tap gently on the back of his hand before withdrawing the contact. 

‘Platonic’ I tell his questioning face before reaching back across and clasping his hand and entwining our fingers. I try to ignore the pressure of his hand in mine, the tightening of my skin in response to his actions and I pull away to make my point.

‘Not platonic.’ I tell him as he finally understands what I am doing and smiles gently. I continue the rehearsal, elbowing him gently without leaning into him, a whisper of camaraderie with no sexual overtones.

‘Platonic?’ he asks, before slinging an arm across my shoulders and ushering me into the place at his side that always feel like home, bodies angled towards one another. I nod and tell him.

‘Not platonic.’ He drops his arm behind me, just gently catching the hem of the shirt and dragging it across the bare skin of my butt, waking up every nerve ending in that sensitive region and sending a blush to my cheeks. But I press on with our little game, placing each of my hands flat on his shoulders and rising on tiptoes to give him an L.A. air-kiss on each cheek.

I don’t manage to get more than the P of platonic out before he is demonstrating the opposite, hands adding to the tangle of my hair and pulling me into him, growling when he feels the hardness of my nipples against his bare chest and dropping one hand to pinch at them through the shirt.

Breathing raggedly, eyes pressed shut I release him I hear him whisper, ‘not platonic’ and then he’s behind me and my lashes snap open to watch in the mirror as his arm around my waist drags me backwards, fingers already slipping the buttons of the shirt undone and one of his legs relentlessly pushing mine apart, my hips involuntarily grinding against him.

Words fail me as I watch the definitely non-platonic display unfold in the glass before me. It’s not only not platonic it’s the one of the most erotic things I have ever seen, I’m strung up on him, a puppet to my desire as his body takes me over and his hands make electricity dance a flush across my exposed body. The shirt hangs useless from my elbows, trapping my arms and giving him complete access to every inch of me. One of his hands is painting pleasure over the marks of last night, dropping every now to pinch and twist at my breasts, the whimpers his attentions draw from me spurring on his mouth at my throat and the fingers that are teasing between my legs. 

I watch myself spread for him, trying desperately to increase the contact between his hands and my pussy but he’s merciless, dabbing into the moisture in unpredictable, wanton patterns that have stimulated nerve endings I didn’t even know I had. My clit is crying out for attention and when I finally give into and vocalise my want he finally relents, drawing my legs further apart and sliding his middle finger inside. As he begins to set a rhythm, hooking his finger inside to drag against the sweet spot he knows so well he bumps the knuckle of his thumb into my clit and I dissolve into the sensation, leaning back into him and pressing down, eyes shut and lights already beginning to dance inside the lids.

But then he stops, mouth rising to nibble at my earlobe as I start to protest.

‘Open your eyes Gillian. I don’t want you to miss the end of the lesson.’

And there’s a hypnotic timbre to his voice that I can resist, it’s in his eyes which I find fixed on the mirror, on what his hands are doing to me. And as his fingers start up again and my hips rock to the relentless tug of my approaching climax he drops his hand from my breast and lifts one of my legs at the knee, exposing the glistening pink of my sex and the desperate dance of his fingers.

I can’t look away, this is the lewdest, most intimate thing I can imagine and I can feel his cock, hard and twitching against my back as he dedicates himself to my pleasure. It’s rising in me, gathering in my fingers and my toes and rushing towards my centre where his three fingers now plunge over and over into me, beckoning me towards surrender, his thumb hard on my clitoris as he bites down on my earlobe.

David’s triumphant smile is the last thing I see in the mirror before my eyes roll back and I ride the intense wave of my orgasm. My knees buckle as my muscles convulse, mouth and mind finally in tandem as I pant out David’s name over and over again. As the aftershocks flow through me he gently places my leg down and steadies me in his arms.

When I finally gather myself enough to meet his gaze I find in it a conflicted haze of want and pride, of fear and defiance. It’s the question that we’ve been dancing around since the email, the question about our status that Melanie implied but was sensible enough not to ask. That neither of us has been willing to ask, And I so answer it for the both of us, voice hoarse but strong.

‘Not platonic. Never platonic again. But it’s ours, it’s not for anybody else to see.’

And he nods once in agreement before I pull him to me, tugging his sweatpants down, his body warm against me as my back meets the cold glass


	5. E - Eat that and you're dead to me!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's April 2016 and David returns to his apartment to find things not entirely as he had expected.

 

> **_Cause I'm not easy to understand  
>  But you know me like the back of your hand_ **
> 
> _Making Plans - Miranda Lambert_
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

I walk fast down the hallway, the magnetism of her still overpowering me after all this time. A small smile plays around my mouth at the thought of finding her at home in my space, her presence overwhelming the boundaries between our lives, her things in my drawers and her smell in my air. I wonder at the urgency of my return after only hours apart, at the pace I have maintained all the way back from my meeting, disregarding a niggling pain in my knee that tells me I’m no longer the young man I was when we first made love.

Back then I used to pause at the door and try and talk myself out of adding another layer of experience to the complicated mess that was our relationship, but now I don’t hesitate. She’s been here for less than a week and already our new habits are washing our old, destructive ones from the slate. I hope she’ll hear the key in the door and come to greet me with a soft kiss, glasses pushed up on her head and hair mussed from the way she plays with it while she’s learning her lines. I’ve never had the privilege of being around her when she’s working on a play before and now I’m obsessed with the raw excitement in her eyes, the nervous energy that drives her to her mirror to watch her expressions and movements, to record her voice and understand every inflection. With short days to go before opening night there’s a luminosity to her, the energy of someone who is doing exactly what they are meant to be doing with their life and knows it. I’m still struggling to believe that I am a part of that equation.

I don’t worry when she’s not in the living room or kitchen, sometimes she naps in the early afternoon but when I don’t find her in our bedroom I begin to panic. I glance about for a note that will tell me where she is, a coffee run maybe, and try to dismiss the fearful voice that tells me she’s run from me again like she did in 1994 and so many times since. Shoes and bag still on I move from room to room searching for some sign of her; her handbag is still by the door, her charger on the counter but there’s nothing else until I reach the end of the hall and the usually untouched guest bedroom. The door is just a fraction ajar and when I still I can hear a faint rustling from inside.

I enter softly, wondering why she has suddenly extended her domain, eyes adjusting to the bright light of drapes thrown open to the afternoon sunlight which illuminates a short trail of gold foil wrappers dotting the floor between me and the open door of the bathroom.

I find her kneeling bathed in light in the empty bathtub. She’s fully dressed and hunched forward until her face is inches from the mirrored wall, her expression unreadable. To her side is the box of dark chocolates I bought her yesterday, more empty gold foils spilling out and on to the tiles. She doesn’t look round as I enter though her eyes meet mine for a second in the mirror.

‘I can’t do this play David.’ she tells me matter of factly, as though it could be as simple as that.

I cross the room and close the lid of the toilet, sitting sideways with my knees against the tub and resting forward on my elbows, wanting to be close but also to give her space to vent whatever it is that’s driven her to this moment.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘You’re going to be even more amazing that you were last time Gillian’, and as the words leave my lips, her face crumples and I realise that my words have been exactly the wrong ones.

‘No I won’t’,’ she sniffles as tears gloss over her eyes and start to pool in the corners. ‘Maybe I could only do it two years ago? I’m not the same as I was then and I’m going to be terrible!’

I reach across and squeeze her shoulder as she drops her eyes away from me and her body begins to shake. The cold boundary of the ceramic keeps me from folding her into my arms and I feel helpless as soft sobs begin to echo around the room. Desperate to do something I kick my shoes off and climb into the tub behind her, awkwardly cramming my long legs into the confined space and dragging her back  and around until she’s sitting sideways on my crossed legs and my face is buried in the nook between her shoulder and neck. As I shuffle a little to try and get more comfortable and hold her close I hear the crunch of folding paper and pull a now crumpled head-shot out from between us.

Gillian flicks at the photograph with her finger and I see her lower lip poke out a little in a quivering pout.

‘See?’ she says pathetically. ‘They wanted to know if I wanted to use the same promotional picture from two years ago and they sent this for approval. I don’t look anything like this any more! I don’t recognise myself! That’s Blanche and I’m not her any more and I can’t do it!’ and she pushes the offending image out of her sight-line and buries her face in my shoulder. I sigh and thread my fingers into her hair, applying gentle soothing pressure with one hand and attempting to smooth out the photograph with the other so I can see it properly.

I know this picture well. It’s the one that accompanied the glowing reviews that I read with such pride all the way across the Atlantic. She’s hardly made up and the intensity of her gaze cuts through the paper and into you as you look at it. She is bold and striking and wonderful and I realise that maybe the Gillian hiding in my arms is as intimidated by this photo-preserved woman as other people are.

I let go of the picture and run a finger down her damp cheek and under her chin, forcing her to meet my eyes.

‘Gillian. You have never been more capable of playing Blanche than you are right now and not just because you’re channelling her penchant for bathtub breakdowns. Two years for most people is hardly any time but you’ve done so much and all of that makes you more prepared and not less. You’re happier than you were then, you’re working on projects and charities that are important to you. You’re changing the world for the better, you went to the UN, you’re speaking out for equality and that’s just the edge of the impact you’re having. And that’s just the personal stuff. You know you’re a better actress every damn day? I mean you even managed to tell me you enjoyed my dancing on the X-Files with a straight face and we both know it was horrendous.’ At this she finally cracks a tiny smile and the storm in her eyes seems to calm if not clear. I can tell there is something I still don’t know and so I wait. Her voice is quiet when she finally completes the puzzle.

‘I just feel…. too old. I thought I’d made peace with ageing and could brush off shit like that Daily Mail piece but then to see a picture that’s only two years old and then see myself now… I look so different. What the fuck am I gonna look like two years from now?’

‘You’ll be beautiful. Just like you were then and are now and will be in twenty years.’ My answer is simple and truthful. Every version of her face has been beautiful to me and I don’t see that changing.

‘But I’m so wrinkly!’ she protests. She has never been good at accepting compliments without qualification and so I scoot forward in the tub, nudging at her shoulder until she’s facing the mirror and I can see over her shoulder. Without warning I tickle her ribs and she giggles and squirms and I point at her reflection.

‘See?’ I tell her. The little lines around your eyes appear every time you laugh. Sometimes when you giggle  in public I want to try and kiss them all just so everyone knows that they’re mine.’

This line of attack gives me tight mouthed, soft eyed smile that I now associate with surprising her with something sweet. So I tell her,

‘I first saw this smile at the Paley Centre. When I told you how much appreciated your work on the episodes I directed. It’s why you have these little dimples on your cheeks and I love that. Gillian, I know your face better than the back of my hand and every single line on it is there for a damn good reason. There are traces your Scully eyebrow hitch and your “Piper if you don’t stop that right now you’re gonna regret it” scowl. I wouldn’t change one thing about you and I can’t wait to see what’s still to come.’

As she processes what I’ve said I feel her start to relax, the tight lines of her shoulders falling as I realise for once in my life I have said the right thing at the right time. Her face in the mirror turns peaceful behind the tear-streaks and for a moment she’s lost in her own little world. I leave her there and start to gently rub the remaining tension from her shoulders relieved when after a few minutes she collapses back against me, eyes closed, breathing calm and announces,

‘Okay. Maybe I can do the play. But I want a new picture.’ I chuckle quietly and hold her close, ignoring the creeping cold and stiffness of our bathtub perch. Minutes pass in thoughtful silence until I absent-mindedly reach across to the chocolates and pull one out.

‘Eat that and you’re dead to me.’ She hasn’t moved or opened her eyes so the steel in her voice is in sharp contrast to her beautific face in the sunlight. I guiltily return my stolen treat to the box. A hint of a smile plays on her lips and her tone is teasing

‘Honestly David. You claim to know me like the back of your hand and you still don’t know not to touch my chocolate when I’m having a crisis?’

‘Sorry G-Woman. Won’t happen again’ I reply. And then she’s turning in my lap, eyes glittering dangerously. I know exactly what this look means and it’s bad news for my complaining body as far making it out of the tub goes.

She pushes me back and away from the taps until I’m as stretched out as I can be and she’s straddling me in my guest bathtub. Her small hands are busy with my belt as she starts nibbling my collarbone

‘It’s fine’, she whispers, voice husky and low, ‘I’ve thought of a way you can make it up to me’.


	6. Hurt - A Request Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 1997 and all is not well on set or off.... This was a request fic for a nonny who wanted a Dark Ages "sick-lit". Not exactly on bried but this is what came to me so I hope you enjoy it as much as you can total angry angst!

> _**April. 1997** _
> 
> _I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel_  
>  I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real  
> You could have it all, my empire of dirt  
> I will let you down, I will make you hurt 
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

They’ve hardly yelled cut when I spin and start running, biting back the acid taste in my throat that has rolled unstoppably upwards as I choked my way through those last lines of dialogue. I don’t look back, just straight at the ground as cold sweat beads under my suit and the floor swims in my eyes. If I had the energy I’d say a silent prayer of thanks when the closest bathroom to the shoot is unoccupied but I don’t, concentrating instead on getting the door locked and twisting my hair away as I careen into the toilet, emptying my morning coffee and a few mouthfuls of cereal into the bowl.

I retch over and over again, until I burn all over and there is nothing left to come up. This is the third morning in a row that a toilet seat has been my pillow and I just want to curl up there and sleep. But I know I can’t. We have a full shooting schedule and even the minutes I’ve spent in here are allotted elsewhere. 

Peeling myself of the floor I go to the basin and wash out my mouth, resisting the urge to splash my face and incur the wrath of the make-up team. I look as bad as I feel. Faded and clammy and desperate for these last couple days of re-shoots to be over. For this series to be over.

Taking a deep breath and smoothing my hair I exit the bathroom and walk straight into the last person I want to see. I try and sidestep but he’s not moving, taking a firm grip on my upper arm as I try to walk away and pulling me back into the bathroom and locking the door.

‘Do I need to shout kidnap?’ I snap as I brace my back against the door, determined not to go an inch further along with his plan that I have to. David sighs, the long-suffering sigh I know too well from four years of spending too many hours at his side. I don’t meet his eyes. I don’t need to. I know I’ll only find the hostile distance that’s poisoned even the deepest roots of what used to be my closest friendship and I’m not strong enough to handle that this morning.

'Gillian stop it! I know you’re sick and I want to help! Can you please just look at me?’. I can see the toes of Mulder’s shiny shoes pacing agitatedly a few feet away and still I fight the urge to look up. To believe that this morning we’ll finally remember how to talk to each other. I think I’ve won, reaching out for the lock and my escape when his hand is on mine, sof now and his voice is the voice I haven’t heard in weeks. Soft. Pleading.

'Gillian. Please.’ And I surrender. Giving into to the stormy hazel of his gaze and finding there the concern and care that I was afraid had been lost forever the night that he confessed his desires and I pushed him away. The night that I-

My response to the painful memory is physical and I dart past him, retching again though there’s nothing left to come up. Coughing and spasming as if my body is trying to purge every trace of the sickening weight I’ve been carrying in my stomach. But eventually it ends, cool hands on my forehead and support at my waist, helping me up to perch on the edge of the sink, a damp towel to my aching head and soft sweet nothings in my ears.

I regain my senses slumped forward against David’s chest. One of his arms around my shoulders and the other caressing my hair. I bite my lip to stop the tears forming. I am done crying over him and drawing a deep shuddering breath I straighten and pull away, shrugging his hands away to hang awkwardly at his sides.

'Thanks,’ I tell him. 'But I’m fine now.’ I hold his gaze steadily and watch frustration and helplessness swim through his eyes. Whoever would have thought that it would be the same wordless communication that sells our screen chemistry and people claim they’d kill for that sealed the coffin on our relationship, that told him everything I couldn’t when he told me he loved me and wanted to make a go of things. He laid his hopes and dreams for us, for Piper in my lap, his promises as naked and raw as his body under my sheets and I pushed them away with one look. That just like now, where I see all the ways I am failing him and all the ways he’d like to help me but can’t, in that precious moment he saw uncertainty and fear and fresh heartbreak and the wall I’d put up to protect me and my little daughter from the kind of hurt we’d just survived. That I broke his heart without having to say a word. 

We tell the press it’s a gift but right now it’s torture.

He still hasn’t spoken or moved and I don’t want to keep going with this conversation. I don’t want him to be sweet to me. I don’t want the good guy in him to come out and so I ask the question that I know will harden his heart and his eyes. That will start the fight that will get me out of this room.

'So how’s Téa’. My tone is flat and he stiffens and steps away. I simultaneously relax and brace for the harsh rebuttal but it doesn’t come.

'I don’t want to talk about her Gillian. I want to talk about you. About whatever this is,’ and as he gestures at me and the bathroom and I hear him fighting for control. I hear the unmistakeable sound of a question he is afraid to ask. Time was I’d tell him to spit it out. I’d laugh or tease or yell my way around to whatever the secret was but now I don’t want to know. But it’s too late and he finds his words. 

'Gillian…. are you pregnant.’ The silence is leaden and he’s staring at his shoes, weighed down by his question and missing the shock on my face at the craziness of his suggestion and shake my head.

'Why would you think-’

'You’ve been sick every morning, you look tired, like you’re not sleeping. Just like with Piper. And you’re stressed and short with everyone, you’ll hardly be in a room with me when we’re not filming and I’m trying to think of what could have done this. I know we weren’t always careful but you know… you know that I-’ he falters and stalls to a stop as it’s my turn to try and find a way to answer all of his questions. But he’s still going.

'I know it’s not what you want right now, I know you’re still adjusting to everything I just have to know that f you are that you won’t exclude me from making decisions. I’m ready to have a family now Gillian. I truly am! It’s what I asked you for and I still mean everything I said that night. I want you! No matter what’s happened since. No matter what it looks like!’

'No matter what it looks like? You mean like how you have a new girlfriend who hates my guts and can’t bear to have you in a room with me?’ His last statement has kick-started my fighting spirit and despite how terribly wring he is I can’t believe what he is asking of me. 'You think that being ready for a family is as simple as speaking the words or giving some interview to the press about how things are suddenly different for you? You have no idea what a baby does to things. What it takes to make things work. How dare you come in here and ask me to promise to involve you in a choice about my body when you can’t even last a month after claiming that you love me without fucking somebody new!’

'You told me no!’ and finally the sweetness is gone from his face and I’m left with the David I can manage, the David whose fire I can break with my own. 'You told me that you weren’t looking for another long term thing. That you wanted to be alone for a while. Maybe forever.’

'And you believed me.' 

And there it is. The root of all this misery. A man so good with words and bad with feelings pours out his heart to a woman whose chased feelings that have only ever brought her to disaster. A moment of panic, of weakness and then a frantic burning of bridges, the formation of contingencies, a binding off of open wounds without cleaning them first. We’ve fallen so far and so fast that I had thought we would never get back. I’ve watched him laugh with the beautiful woman who looks a little like me but without the baggage and with all the things I know he admires, an education and background to match his own and I knew how easily he could slip away. It’s what uncorked the first bottle of wine I touched in my new, husband-less apartment. I’ve seen him search my face across the room with an unreadable look and then decide not to cross and talk to me. That loss has refilled my glass over and again until I could finally fall asleep alone. But now perhaps we can save ourselves. He will hear in my quiet accusation all the things I haven’t said and we can start to make things right. As friends. As lovers. Maybe one day as the family he claims to want.

But then there’s someone at the door and we have no time, we never have any time.

And he’s gripping my wrists, lost again in his own paranoid panic, his fear of losing something he’s hardly begun to dream of and blind to what I’m asking of him.

'Gillian. Promise me you won’t- you won’t take it away from me,’ and in his moment of selfish, blind desperation I want to hurt him as badly as he’s hurt me. To take away a reality he’s invented in the cruellest way. And so I narrow my eyes and I whisper,

'Who says it’s even yours.’

His eyes flash grey with sadness and then dark with anger and he spins on his heel and storms out of the bathroom. My victory barely lasts as long as the words linger in my mouth and I double over with the finality of what I’ve done, empty pains shooting around the stomach that another night of numbing excess has already emptied.

I leave the bathroom hollowed of all strength, held up barely by duty and my stiff collar and the knowledge that on the other side of the day is a little girl who desperately needs me. I pray to the vague amorphous spirits of the universe that tonight I will find peace and sleep without the help of a bottle of wine, hating that in place of the wide eyed girl who first walked on to this set there now stands a broken woman whose sickness is not in the service of the creation of a new life but in the destruction of her own.


	7. Wake Up Call - A Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a little conversation on tumblr this ficlet finds David in London while Gillian is in NYC and imagines what a phonecall between them might sound like. Rated G! Thanks to J for the inspiration!

The raucous beep of an unfamiliar alarm wakes me with a start and I flip over, groaning in a desperate attempt to shut the bastard up. Usually I wake like clockwork, five minutes before my wake up call but my body still isn’t used to the weekend routine of Streetcar, the exhaustion of a two-show Saturday and the earlier Sunday showtime. Rummaging, disoriented and bleary eyed through the bedside table I find everything but the alarm clock, my phone, glasses, books and then finally the solid plastic of the things that is still screeching at me like some sort of demented sleep ruining harpy. It has too many buttons so I just hit it until it finally shuts off and then collapse back on to the bed, bringing my phone with me to check the time and read the boys daily text from home.

When I see my notifications my heart stops.

Fuck. 

Five missed calls and almost twenty texts. I’ve slept through a crisis and I’m halfway across the world and I’m on my feet, pacing as I fumble to unlock the phone, all thoughts of sleep and Streetcar banished from my head as worst case scenarios begin to present themselves to me. 

I’m bracing for a disaster but it doesn’t make sense because when I scroll through the messages they’re not from Mark or Piper or the nanny and there’s only the morning update I was expecting from my sons. Everything else is from David, a barrage of text and pictures that my still panicky brain can’t make sense of as I press the redial button. He answers on the first ring.

“Finally! I was about to call out a search party for you”. He sounds giddy and happy and completely unlike himself. 

“I just woke up” I mumble, my voice still shaking out the last sleep creases and hoarser than usual. “Is everything okay David? I saw all the notifications and I was worried?” He chuckles,

“Everything is fine G-woman.  Well except that I stole your dog.”

“Huh?” Now I am really confused. “Are you drunk?” 

“Nope! Well I did have “a half of bitter” with my lunch but mostly I’m just in the sun and happy. And Nelson is too. Despite the kidnapping. It’s a beautiful day in London, Gillian, I can see why you love it here.’ 

And then all the pieces fall into place. He’s in my city, the weekend we’d planned to have together almost two years ago when he first talked about bringing his music to the UK. Before we got fucked yet again by scheduling. As he starts to explain what he’s been doing I settle back on the bed and putting him on speaker I scroll through the pictures he’s sent. Starting at about 6am London time there’s pictures of the Thames and his beat up running shoes kicked up on a bench with a funny inscription on the riverbank. There’s some unctuous looking green smoothie, a blurry selfie of him and the Tower of London and then, more recently a series of pictures of Nelson out for a walk in the parks and streets that stir up those warm ideas of home that linger no matter how far away I am.

It’s so strange seeing David in my world, it has all the magic of a dream but the weight and expectation of reality and I’m both thrilled and scared by it. I wonder if that’s how he feels about me being in New York. Mostly though I just wish I were there and I tune back into his words to tell him so only to find he has lapsed into silence.

‘Hello?’ I venture and he’s still there, with a note of hesitance creeping into his voice for the first time.

‘Oh you are still there. I thought maybe you’d hung up! I mean I probably should have checked before I borrowed your dog. And your house. I mean I know I have a key and I checked with your assistant but-’

‘No it’s fine!’ I cut him off knowing that if I let his mind go there he will spend all day unravelling some complex motives for my hesitancy that haven’t even occurred to me and I don’t want that for either of us. It’s something we’re getting better at though it’s taken us two decades. ‘I’m glad you’re there I was just thinking that I wish I was there too. I miss London. I miss Nelson!’

‘Well Nelson is having a grand time and I got him treats so I think he may be over you which is awkward. I’m thinking for the big finish of our first date I might take him to Nelson’s column so he can mark it as his territory? What do you think?’ I can imagine his lopsided smile at his stupid little joke and I giggle, 

‘I think that letting my dog urinate on a national landmark sounds like the best possible way to get you arrested and break the news that something’s going on between us to the assholes in the press. Can you imagine the headlines, “Dirty Dog Duchovny - US star getting a leg over more than one national treasure”. And it’s his turn to laugh though I don’t doubt the actual headline would probably be much much worse! As his chuckling dies away we settle into a light, comfortable silence, the kind that if we were together would be filled with those tiny messages we pass back and forth in touches and eye contact, the kind that don’t need words. When he breaks the silence his voice is soft and low and I can hear birdsong in the background.

‘I miss you so much Gillian. I know it’s only been a few days but I’ve got used to seeing you every day. It’s why I went to your house. I … I may have checked into my hotel and then gone to sleep at yours. Friday and yesterday. I wanted to feel close to you. I wanted to sleep in your bed even if you weren’t in it. Is that weird? I don’t think I care if it’s weird any more.’ He sounds so vulnerable, so honest. We still haven’t really worked out what exactly this thing between us is but it’s moments like these that remind us why we’ve kept coming back. Why all the logistics don’t matter because what we are to each other far outweighs all the practicalities and the messy volume of our history. The knowledge that finally we have found a way, as unconventional as every stage of our relationship has been, to finally tell each other these things fills me with a fierce warmth that spreads from my heart to the tips of my fingers leaving no room for doubt or denial.

‘If it’s weird David, then we’re both weirdos together. Because I’m sat on your bed right now, wearing your t-shirt and boxers and I went to sleep last night cuddling your pillow. It smells like you. I didn’t even try to sleep at the hotel, it would have been pointless.’ And from all the way across the Atlantic I hear him release the breath he probably didn’t even know he was holding, the breath we hold for every new confession that could change things. I wonder how many of these breaths we have left, how long it will be until our brains admit what our hearts know and we stop waiting for it all to fall apart. I don’t think it will be long.

‘Now I’m wishing I was back there too’ is his only reply and I think that if wishes had the power to move a human from one place to another he would materialise next to me in an instant. But it’s probably best they don’t, I have a play to do in a few hours and a lot of getting ready between now and then and so reluctantly I start to tell him goodbye. He tells me he misses me again, tells me he’ll keep sending me London snapshots and promises me he’ll wear the kilt when he gets back to New York but this time he’ll go full Scottish, just for me. 

We’ve almost run out of excuses to prolong the conversation, to put off goodbye and the impending loss of this little moment when I see shards of black plastic on the floor and shuffle over for a better look. When I realise what it is I cut through his sweet nothings with an explosive giggle.

‘What is its?! What did you do?’ He knows my laughter too well and knows that I have done something ridiculous and it gives me a good note to go out on.

‘Babe,’ I tell him.  ‘I think I can forgive you for stealing my dog. Because I may have murdered your alarm clock.’


	8. C12 - A Streetcar Scenario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An idea I've been rolling around my mind since Streetcar opened, AU where David hasn't seen the show and it's now closing night. Angsty, Teen rated.

I didn’t notice it the first night when adrenaline and fear danced dizzy in my head and habit was the only thing that got me from one end of a monologue to another. I didn’t notice it even when we lost control and desperate nervous laughter broke the illusion of the spinning world we had created. It wasn’t until show three, when muscle memory had begun to take over and my eyes had, at certain moments, begun to focus on points beyond the set that it caught my eye. And it lodged there like toothache.

One empty seat in a sea of shadowy heads.

That first night I pushed it away. It was just one seat and  the show wasn’t going to be sold out every night, I wasn’t so conceited to think that it should be. Especially when the reviews started to come in. I knew bringing Tennessee to America in a European costume would be a risk and for the most part I didn’t mind the reviewers who hated us. They hated us for not being expected and the ones who loved our show loved it for the same reasons I did. Every night we spun a messy web of desperate humanity and dragged our audience into it with us. I was proud of us for that and when the time came to bow each night I looked thanks out at everyone who had come along with us for the journey. And then I would look at C12, empty.

It probably sounds silly if I tell you that one persistently empty seat became a symbol for my experience of Streetcar in Brooklyn. At first it was a reminder that I could work harder, do more, that we could improve the production and fill the house if we only tried harder. We did all of these things and though my energy ebbed and my shins bruised seat C12 remained empty.

By week three I knew the rotation of the stage well enough that I could see the blank space at key moments. The worst was during the rape scene where it would appear hazily through the pink chiffon covering my face and in the awful stillness of the moment the Blanche/Gillian hybrid I was living saw in the empty seat all of the people who hadn’t seen me perform this role that I’d dreamed of for so long. Some of them were lost to me forever, sadness showing me my brother or my post-college girlfriend. I hoped that wherever they were they knew how much I was living, that I’d survived my demons for now at least and that I was thinking of them. Other faces were those I wished would come but likely wouldn’t; complex loves and friendships whose presence here would complicate things astronomically, to the extent that I wouldn’t dare ask them to come, even if I thought they would say yes. Of those faces one was the most persistent, it’s possessor scarred twenty years deep on my heart with raw, recent misunderstanding to compound the deal. It was after his face had appeared there three shows in a row that I cracked and stormed to the booking office.

‘Why can we never fill seat C12′, I ask the confused girl at the desk, my tone tasting more of Stella Gibson than myself. After an eternity of tapping she tells me that seat C12 is booked for that night and yet when I step on the stage and spin to face it I find it is again empty.

I’m obsessed now, back at the office where it turns out that for all it’s apparent emptiness, C12 has been booked every single show of the run. I task the terrified ticket agent with making sure the ticket is collected and note down by who before I go back and get ready, mind finally at ease that my mystery is nearly solved.

But the seat swings by empty again, taunting me in the midst of a sell-out crowd and I return to a note in my dressing room that some girl had collected the ticket but never entered the auditorium. For three days we repeat this charade, the notes from the ticket office getting more apologetic as I get more hysterical every time the seat show up empty. It seems that the ticket is booked every day, collected by somebody different but never used. The day Ben has to stop me from marching out and watching the exchange myself just for some peace of mind is the day I know it has gone too far, that solving the seat mystery is not going to settle the strange nervousness I have felt from lights up on day one. 

As much as I’ve been trying to avoid it, Streetcar is taking it’s toll on me in a way it didn’t two years ago and I know in my rational mind that whatever the deal is with C12 is only me trying to pin my uneasiness on something other than myself. Instead of obsessing I try to meditate, remembering some stage fright reducing breathing exercises David taught to me in one of our light afternoons in Vancouver. He said it helped him to relax before he had to go out and sing badly for strangers. I laughed at the memory and felt some of the tension leave me. If he could get up and do something he knew wasn’t his strength then I could finish up this play. Maybe I’d even call him after and see if he wanted to do dinner. It was past time one of us extended the olive branch and though I’d sworn it wouldn’t be me this time perhaps setting things to rights would help me balance things out.

My resolve set and mind easy I give one of my best performances to date and when the crowd leaps to its feet I finally feel like I truly deserve their praise. My eyes flit to C12 and I decide that from now onwards it can be my anchor, that whatever the story behind it is, it’s a constant in a sea of strangers and that I will remember the uplift of this applause when I see it in tough moments for the rest of the run.

And it kind of works. 

The last three weeks spin past in a blur and before I know it it’s closing night and I’m high on my achievement but desperately glad it is over. I’m too old and tired to play the Blanche I want to play now and so it is time for the two of us to say goodbye. Once I’m done removing the last traces of her makeup from the creases around my eyes I pack her clothes into their bags and prepare to walk away punching familiar numbers into my phone as I walk out into the lobby.

I’ve made up a lot of good reasons why I’ve put off this call until now, why even after my little yoga epiphany I haven’t reached across the few miles to contact David. I told myself I needed to focus, that he was off on tour, that we never did well for long periods of time in the same city and too much was on the line for me to start a fight. Really though I think I was hoping he’d show at the play, that he’d put aside all his public attention fears and just be here for me. But he is who he is and for all my wishes and disappointments I still want to see him before I leave and for that I am willing to make the call.

The pause before the connection is eternity.

And then I hear ringing. Not down the phone ringing. Actual ringing, a generic but familiar ringtone coming from what should be an empty theatre. As the ringing continues my feet sleepwalk towards the noise, phone hanging at my side as I make Blanche’s first entrance in my own skin.

The phone rings twice more from seat C12 before it’s owner stands and waves it at me with a slight shrug. It is the mirror of the last six weeks, an empty house but for the one, meaningfully full seat. Not knowing what else to do with myself I walk past him and step up on to the the stage, head spinning faster than the revolve ever did. I drift to the middle before I turn to him, he’s sat back down and his face is unreadable.

‘You came’ iss my opening line, cracked voice carrying just far enough to reach my audience of one. David nods.

‘Every night that I wasn’t away. And then I sent my assistant.’ His tone is smooth and matter-of-fact. As if going to see one play fifty odd times is normal and logical behaviour. Though for our relationship it’s not actually especially weird. Ignoring for a moment the logistical questions I am dying to ask him I jump straight to the thorny issue, folding my arms against the possible hurt in what I know will be an honest answer.

‘What did you think? Did you like it?’ And then I hold my breath, because whatever else he has been to me over time I have always valued his opinion.

‘I didn’t like it at all Gillian’ is his opening cut and I struggle not to crumple even as he keeps talking, reason cooling the burn of his words. 

‘I never expected what I saw on this stage. I was expecting typical Williams with a modern twist, melodramatic southern dames and Marlon Brando macho and lots of ivy and jazz and what I got was… well it was brutal. Brilliant but awful. It was raw and seamy and I wanted so badly to look away, not to laugh at the jokes knowing where things were headed, not to care. But I couldn’t. It was like being on drugs or stuck under water. The whole show dragged me under. But especially you. I couldn’t not watch Blanche hurt herself, I wanted to save her some nights, I wanted to watch her burn other nights. I knew you were good Gillian but god… You were… I don’t think there’s a word for what you were. And I’m good at words. Transcendent seems so pretentious and there wasn’t a moment where you weren’t painfully real. So no. I can’t say that I liked it but damn was I impressed.’

And with that he trails off, seemingly out of words and trying now to communicate with just his eyes the things he hasn’t been able to say. I don’t have any words to offer back to him, his appraisal exactly what I wanted for the show, his description of me perfect in its’ imperfection. Without being aware of moving I find myself in the row in front of him, kneeling up in the seat my eyes level with his as he rests forwards, chin in hands to ask me the question I have asked myself for three weeks.

‘Gillian… Why didn’t you invite me to come?’ there’s hurt and confusion in the syrupy hazel of his eyes and unable to answer I respond with my own million-dollar question

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were here?’ and with both of us baring our insecurity I am brave enough to take his hand in mine. He sighs and clasps my small, cool palm between his, guitar callouses rough as he moves it to his face, leaning in to my unplanned caress.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to come. After how we left things with the revival, the denials and the press interest. At first I didn’t want to make your show a gossip piece about us. But then I made deal with the theatre to sneak in and watch from the back, to avoid the press and the fans and I couldn’t decide when to come, I know it’s ridiculous but I figured if I had a ticket to every show I could just pick one that worked and it didn’t have to be a big deal. But it was. And I couldn’t wait and I was here opening night when the phone fell and you laughed and I thought I’d come back and see it go how I knew you’d want to go. So I came the next night, and then I was under some sort of spell and I saw in Blanche the you that I knew when things were terrible between us. Those horrible years when we tried to destroy each other, I saw them on the stage and I worried that if I went behind it I’d somehow bring them back. But I couldn’t stay away, I just bribed various kids to go collect my tickets and crept in the back and watched you over and over again and tried to work up the courage to call-’

That was when I kissed him. I kissed him with all the desperation of Blanche, the gratefulness of this moment and the bitter-sweet love of our twenty year history. I kissed him for being there, softly for his support and hard in an attempt to devour the stupidity of it all. When the oxygen between us thinned to gasping point we pulled back, separated only by the back of the chair, the rake of the floor adding inches to our already ridiculous height difference. He pulls me tight to his chest and knots his finger in my hair and I know without looking that David is looking at me like he did when I told him I was leaving Clyde, like he did the first time I let him spend the night in my trailer in Vancouver. People in songs like to talk about the love-light in someone’s eyes but they don’t know the half of it. David’s eyes turn to molten gold in moments like these, when he finally gets something he thought was lost to him and I want to always be the one to put that glow there.

Moments pass or maybe it’s forever before I speak.

‘Why did you keep booking the same seat though? Didn’t you read the pretentious bit I put in the programme about viewing the show from many perspectives?’ He shrugs, nonchalant.

‘I knew I wasn’t going to be sitting in it and this row has an odd number so it meant there was no lone seat left over.’ I smile against his body at the idea that the spot that had frustrated and tormented me for so long can be so simply explained away.

‘I guess sometimes a seat is just a seat’ I tell him before clambering up onto the back of the chair to get closer to his level and muffling his confusion with fluttering kisses on his neck and jaw. In the low hum of our resdiscovered intimacy the post-press tour disagreement falls away, as meaningless as the distance it had erupted over. In this moment, my legs locked around his hips, his arms pressing me to him as though we can somehow merge into one, we can forget all the frustrations and realities of the outside world and focus only on the eternity that we fall back into whenever it is just the two of us. I still don’t know if I believe in soul mates but as he marks out his intentions on the soft skin of my collarbone and starts walking us down the stairs I know that somehow, for better or worse, our souls have indelibly marked each other and that we will always be connected.

His kisses are so overwhelming that my blouse is unbuttoned before I am lucid enough to realise where we are, him shirtless and me not far behind on the bed on the set with theatre staff probably metres away. Shuffling backwards at the risk of it I try and reason with David and his liquid eyes, 

‘David we can’t! What if someone sees?! What if’, he darts his tongue out to wet his lower lip and my breath hitches, derailing my train of thought. ‘David- no - this is… it’s Stanley and Stella’s bed and it has to go in storage and-’

And it’s his turn to kiss the words off my my mouth, one hand possessive in my hair and the other flat on my naked belly, sliding downwards with delightful insistence. And between kisses he makes it all make sense

‘The staff have all gone home, I told you I made them a deal. I wasn’t sure if you’d kiss me or kill me so I made sure it’s just us. And it’s not Stanley and Stella’s bed, it’s prop. So unless you wanna stop, right now this bed is just a bed.’ And then David pauses, drawing back far enough to give me my air and my sanity, checking my eyes for questions and real objections until the distance is too much and like a starving woman I pull him back to me.

This time when I throw my head back I feel nothing but the delicious weight of the man who is my home and the pull of his gravity. I don’t see seat C12 or the spinning set. Far from the darkness of Blanche my body is lit by the fireworks of my nerve endings, firing impossibly deep and incredibly close as pleasure and love burn everything else to the ground.


	9. Last Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A teeny tiny ficlet inspired by my feels about the closing night of Streetcar. GA, we're so proud of you now go sleep for a week!

She waits until the theatre is deserted before she makes a move to leave, lights flicking off for the last time as dressing rooms are abandoned, costumes packed in plastic never to be worn again and a hush steals back spaces that noise and adrenaline used to fill. She’s always cried at endings, at the last cut of every show and the last kiss of every relationship but tonight her eyes are dry. 

She’s cried more for this role than for most, on-stage and off. The physical and emotional toll of the production have been almost more than she could bear and there were nights she’d limped away unsure if she’d be able to drag herself back. When she left Blanche in London she never felt as if there were unfinished business but some itch in the back of her mind made the prospect of America an exciting one. Perhaps it was that always niggling desire to prove herself, to be more than Agent Scully in the country that had half of her heart but whatever it was she hadn’t accounted for the effect that two years might have on her ability to survive this play.

Two years was no time and all the time in the world but in Blanche’s shoes she felt every hour of it adding interest to her fatigue and making her wonder if those critics who wondered if she was too old were right. Most nights the standing ovation brushed the doubts away but sometimes they caught in the lines around her eyes and followed her home.

Right or wrong, she knew this was the last time for her and Blanche. Her role of a lifetime was played out and she was waiting for the funeral tears and finding only a hollow kind of peace. Vanessa’s tears and Ben’s gruff farewell had touched her heart but left her eyes dry and the dressing room door had closed softly and without drama. 

Searching for closure she makes one last trip to the centre of the stage, mind filling the space she helped to imagine with all the colour of the production and the energy of the crowd. She has lived a lifetime here and she cannot mourn that.

But the moment passes and the room begins to chill. She shivers and gathers herself for the car ride home, pausing at the stage door, two steps back from the light to be sure even the most ardent fan has gone. Normally she appreciates their intention but tonight is hers alone. Satisfied that the street is deserted she takes fast short steps through the street-light and sighs as she swings the door shut and leaves St Ann’s behind.

In the soft shadow of the car David reaches across to take her hand, one light squeeze that she returns to tell him she’s okay.

They don’t speak as the driver carries them back to the city, losing themselves in the silence that has always belonged to them. As Brooklyn dissolves into the bright lights of Manhattan they dream about the days they have left and dare to wonder if maybe they can have more, if this time the spinning stage where they dance together can hold them close instead of tearing them apart.


End file.
